Early in my career as a consultant, I took responsibility for the psychiatric care of a group of men who had been resettled in a community facility after decades as residents in a distant mental hospital. One man sticks in my mind. Ernie had diagnoses of learning disability and chronic schizophrenia. He was mute. He […]
Author Archive | Catherine Robinson
A Public Health Disaster
I have mentioned my grandfather, Arthur Poole, in this blog more than once before. He was a plumber (“an artist in lead”), autodidact, raconteur and trade union activist who taught me to appreciate a pint of well-kept bitter. He would be irritated and amused that I was co-author of this report presenting evidence for a […]
Reasons to be cheerful
What if the worst happens? Well, it has. Donald Trump is going to be President of the USA. His campaign rested on his status as an existential “winner”, a promise to reverse America’s misfortunes through the power of will and the demonization of minorities. These ideas belong to a political tradition that is indistinguishable from […]
No more Knock Down Ginger
By Catherine Robinson on 6th November 2016 in India, Internationalism, Mental Health, Politics, Psychiatry
When I was a kid in South East London, there was no Internet and no video games. There were just two black and white television channels. Commencing the day after President Kennedy was assassinated, we had Dr Who on a Saturday evening, but both channels went off for an hour on Sunday evening. The Sixties […]
The life so short, the craft so long to learn
On Monday, 24th October 2016, the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges published a list of forty treatments and investigations that confer no benefit to patients and therefore might be appropriately discontinued. The initiative is part of the Choose Wisely campaign, which started in North America. Although the campaign is driven by the principle “first, do […]
A disturbing footnote in a sad election season
Donald Trump has provoked Michelle Obama to make one of the best political speeches of my lifetime. She spoke in New Hampshire on Thursday 13th October 2016, supporting Hillary Clinton’s Presidential campaign. She displayed a rare authenticity and a passion that I found genuinely moving. It is worth watching all 25 minutes here. It is […]
Gimme Some Truth
Jeremy Hunt is usually a skilful media performer, but he was unable to keep the lid on his own hubris in an interview with the Mail On Sunday this weekend. This is particularly unfortunate as he is developing a talent for being consistently wrong about almost everything. The Mail on Sunday piece opens like this: […]
A change is going to come
British society is in a peculiar place in its attitudes to diversity. This apparent confusion does not just involve multiculturalism and migrants. It is evident with respect to all types of difference. There are certainly signs of real progress. The Last Leg, long one of the funniest programmes on TV, is now also one of […]
We agree about nearly everything
I have blogged about the English junior doctors’ dispute more than once before. Right back in January, I said “There is a great deal at stake in this dispute. A strike is always a two-edged sword, and I have misgivings about where this strike will take us. Nevertheless, sometimes you just have to decide whose […]
Sous les pavés, la plage!
Constant concern about the state of the NHS is wearing. In the background, there is a danger of unwittingly creating a sort of public nihilism, a belief that all is irredeemably lost. I am particularly concerned about deterring the young from entering medicine, and more especially psychiatry. The current crisis is real, but the medical […]